TDP pulls out of NDA: BJP's Andhra ministers resign; top 10 developments

The Telugu Desam Party (TDP) on Wednesday night announced its decision to pull out of the Narendra Modi government at the Centre, with two of the party's ministers resigning from the Union Cabinet on Thursday. The N Chandrababu Naidu-led party took the decision protesting the Centre's refusal to grant Special Category Status to Andhra Pradesh, saying that the Centre had done injustice to the state. On Thursday, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) ministers in the Andhra Pradesh Cabinet submitted their resignation in the chief minister's office in Amaravati. 

Finance Minister Arun Jaitley's promise to provide Andhra Pradesh funds equivalent to what a special-category state receives could not placate the party.

Meanwhile, TDP MPs on Thursday protested inside the Parliament premises over a special category status to Andhra Pradesh. TDP MP Ram Mohan Naidu told news agency ANI: "It's the decision we took after Arun Jaitley's statement". Naidu said that when the TDP was asking for its right, it could not be rejected. "Alliance is still under negotiation. We don't want to make it a political fight between TDP and BJP but a fight for the state," he added. 

TDP MP YS Chowdary and Ashok Gajapathi Raju will give a statement in the Rajya Sabha and Lok Sabha, respectively, according to news agency ANI. Commenting on the BJP-TDP split, YS Chowdary said it was not a good move, but, unfortunately, due to unavoidable circumstances, he and Gajapathi Raju were stepping down as ministers. "Our President said that we will continue to be a partner of NDA. We are most likely to meet PM also," he added. 

On Wednesday night, TDP chief and Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu announced that two TDP ministers -- Civil Aviation Minister Ashok Gajapathi Raju and Minister of State for Science and Technology Y S Chowdary -- would tender their resignations on Thursday morning. Apart from this, the Andhra Pradesh party indicated that it could take other steps as well. "This is the first step. We will go ahead with other actions later," Naidu said.

Ahead of Naidu's announcement, the Narendra Modi government had reached out to its upset Andhra Pradesh ally, but to little avail. At a press conference on Wednesday evening, while Finance Minister Jaitley had said the Centre was committed to meeting all the promises made to Andhra Pradesh at the time of the carving out of Telangana from it four years ago, he rejected its demand for a special status. However, Jaitley promised Andhra Pradesh funds equivalent to what a special category state receives.    

Here are the top 10 developments in the TDP-BJP political tussle:

1) BJP ministers resign from AP Cabinet: On Thursday, BJP's Kamineni Srinivas and Pydikondala Manikyala Rao resigned as ministers from the Andhra Pradesh Cabinet, according to news agency ANI. 



Moments after Naidu asked TDP ministers to resign from the Union Cabinet, the BJP members in Andhra Pradesh announced their resignation from the state Cabinet. BJP MLA Akula Satyanarayana spoke to the media and announced that the two BJP ministers in the state Cabinet -- Kamineni Srinivas and Paidikondala Manikyala Rao -- would resign Thursday morning.   

He said that both Srinivas and Manikyala Rao would not attend the Cabinet meeting to be held on Thursday morning.

2) Two TDP ministers to resign from Union Cabinet today: On Wednesday night, the two TDP ministers in the Modi government were instructed to resign from the Union Cabinet on Thursday by their party leader, Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu. The TDP ministers concerned are Civil Aviation Minister Ashok Gajapathi Raju and Minister of State for Science and Technology Y S Chowdary. 

According to sources, while Naidu consulted with his party legislators in Amaravati, Civil Aviation Minister Raju attended the Wednesday meeting of the Union Cabinet. According to news agencies, nearly all TDP legislators and Members of Parliament (MPs) urged Naidu to walk out of the NDA.

3) Jaitley's refusal to grant special category status was the 'last straw': Jaitley's announcement was the "last straw" for the TDP, said Naidu. Following mounting pressure from the Opposition, the Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister had repeatedly insisted on a special category status for his state. Naidu added that Jaitley's statement was nothing but insulting to the TDP.

The TDP chief said he had made every effort to get the Andhra Pradesh issues resolved by the Centre in the past four years. He added that he had told them about the people's sentiment and tried to convince them in every manner, but to no avail. 

After a three-hour teleconference with party MPs and state ministers following Jaitley's remarks, Naidu said there appeared to be no way that the Centre would help the state. He added that under such inevitable circumstances, the TDP had decided to come out of the NDA.

He said that the TDP had joined the NDA government only to protect the state's interests following its bifurcation. The chief minister claimed that the Centre was taking unilateral decisions without thinking about the solutions to the state's problems.

The chief minister also said that he tried to speak to Prime Minister Narendra Modi over phone as a courtesy to inform him about the decision to pull out of the NDA government. "It is my responsibility as a coalition partner to inform the prime minister about our party's decision. My OSD spoke to his OSD but the prime minister did not come on line," he said.

Naidu said Jaitley's comments suggested that Andhra Pradesh was asking for too much. He also slammed the finance minister for saying "sentiments will not decide the quantum of funds".

He said he made 29 trips to Delhi, met the prime minister and other ministers and tried to do his best to do justice for the state. "I am not angry with anybody," he added.

Naidu hoped that at least now the Centre would respect the sentiment of Andhra Pradesh's people.

4) Jaitley rejects demand for a special category status to Andhra Pradesh: On Wednesday, ahead of Naidu's announcement, the Modi government tried to reach out to its upset Andhra Pradesh ally, the TDP, but that was of little help. Finance Minister Arun Jaitley promised Andhra funds equivalent to what a special category state would receive.

At a press conference, Finance Minister Jaitley said the Centre was committed to meeting all the promises made to Andhra at the time of carving out of Telangana four years ago. However, he rejected the TDP's demand for a special status for the state. 

When he was asked about TDP's threat to pull out of the NDA if more funds were not allocated to the state, Jaitley said: "Political issues cannot increase the quantum of money because the Centre has no free-floating funds. Every state in India has the right to the central fund in the same manner. Sentiment does not decide quantum of funds, it is the constitutional award of the Finance Commission which decides on the quantum of funds that a state gets."

5) Jaitley says 'not constitutionally possible': After the implementation of the 14th Finance Commission recommendation, giving special category status, as demanded by Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Chandrababu Naidu, to any state apart from those in the Northeast and three hilly provinces was not constitutionally possible, Jaitley said on Wednesday. 

In the case of special category states, the Centre meets 90 per cent of the funds required in a centrally sponsored scheme, as against 60 per cent in the case of normal category states. The remaining funds are provided by the state governments concerned. 

For Andhra Pradesh, the finance minister said that the central government had committed 90 per cent of the funds for centrally sponsored schemes. This was equivalent to the treatment for special category states, he added. According to Jaitley, this had been done through other means like external agencies like the World Bank. Jaitley said that the state government, however, wanted funds to be routed through agri-lending bank NABARD. 

The Centre was agreeable even to that, provided that a mechanism was worked out, said Jaitley.

6) TDP could take 'more actions': At present, it is not clear whether the TDP will continue to provide outside support to the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) at the Centre.

On the one hand, Naidu said that while the TDP had come out of the NDA, party-to-party (TDP-BJP ties) issue would be decided later. According to news agencies, this was a hint that the alliance could continue in the future.

However, while Naidu announced in Amaravati that the two TDP ministers would resign from the Union Cabinet, he also said: "This is the first step. We will go ahead with other actions later." 

On Wednesday, TDP MP Naramalli Sivaprasad, who had been protesting inside Parliament demanding special category status for Andhra Pradesh, said that the issue between the BJP and his party had come to a "climax". Sivaprasad added that Chief Minister Naidu would soon take a call on the alliance. "Most probably, there will be a conference with our leader (Naidu) today or tomorrow and a decision will be taken," he said. 

7) Compulsions of Andhra politics behind the move: According to reports, sources have attributed the TDP's decision to the compulsions of Andhra politics. TDP's rival parties, the YSR Congress Party (YSRCP) and the Congress, have criticised it for failing to secure a special category status for Andhra Pradesh. 

The YSRCP had threatened that its MPs would quit the Lok Sabha on April 6. 

The Andhra Pradesh Assembly elections are scheduled to be held along with the Lok Sabha polls in 2019. 

8) BJP says it went 'out of its way' to help Andhra Pradesh: For its part, the BJP rejected N Chandrababu Naidu's charge that the Modi government had neglected Andhra Pradesh. The party said the Centre not only fulfilled all its obligations but also went out of its way to help the state.  

BJP spokesperson G V L Narasimha Rao said that the Modi government had worked to ensure that Andhra Pradesh received full resources in the infrastructure and industrial sectors after the bifurcation of the state. 

Political parties in Andhra Pradesh had been raking up the demand for a special category status for the state without acknowledging that the Centre had offered the state all the benefits without giving this tag, which had become redundant after the 14th Finance Commission report, Rao said. He added that a special category status had ceased to exist.  

Another BJP leader, however, said that all was still not lost between his party and the TDP and that they would see how things unfolded in the coming days. 

9) Congress says 'too little, too late': On Wednesday, the Congress said that the TDP's decision to pull out of the NDA government at the Centre was "too little, too late". The party added that TDP had "done nothing" to protect Andhra Pradesh's interests in the past four years.   

"This is too little and too late. The TDP has been an ally of the BJP for four years now and has done nothing to protect the interests of Andhra Pradesh," senior Congress leader from Andhra Pradesh and former Union minister M M Pallam Raju said. 

10) Rahul bats for a special status to Andhra Pradesh: Earlier this week, on Tuesday, Congress President Rahul Gandhi batted for a special category status for Andhra Pradesh. The Congress President announced this after he joined a protest at Jantar Mantar demanding a 'special status' for the state. MPs of the TDP and the YSRCP had staged the protest. 

Gandhi told the TDP and YSRCP MPs that the Congress party was in favour of granting a special status to Andhra Pradesh. He added that if the Congress came to power in 2019, it would ensure the same. 

Later, he tweeted that the united Opposition could force the BJP-led Union government to do justice to the people of Andhra Pradesh. 

With agency inputs